


Worth It

by AntarcticBird



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 17:14:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6713773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntarcticBird/pseuds/AntarcticBird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's distance. Fortunately, that's mostly geographical.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth It

Having a boyfriend is kind of awesome, Eric decides on the first day they're together, after Jack has kissed him, then left, then texted him just about a minute later. They text a lot, that day. Then talk on the phone. And he feels so full of emotion they're spilling over inside of him bubbling out in the form of laughs and pet names and an endless desire to spread out his arms and twirl on the spot and just never stop smiling.

Jack visits him at home for the 4th of July and it's so amazing – they have to be careful, of course, nobody knows. But every time they're alone in his room, every time they drive around and find a deserted spot and crawl into the bed of Eric's pickup, everything is so perfect he can hardly breathe around it. Jack kisses him until both their mouths are sore and it's the absolute best thing that he's ever felt in his life. He never wants it to stop.

He visits Jack in Providence and somehow things get even better, although that should not even be possible at this point. It turns out that Jack is a cuddler, which Eric had suspected after Madison, but now he gets confirmation. Every time they sit down to watch TV or just talk, Jack puts his head on Eric's shoulder or wraps his arms around Eric's waist or lies down with his head in Eric's lap. It's adorable. They kiss a lot. They do a lot more than kissing too – Eric can't stop wanting to be _closer, closer, always closer_ and Jack touches him like he's precious, so sweet and loving and perfect. He's so gentle with him even when they're both just straining to lose control and Eric feels every cell in his body humming with _Jack Jack Jack_ and he never knew being in love, allowing himself to be in love like this, would be so . . . much. He loves every second of it.

**

College starts back up again and he has to go back to Samwell and Jack has to stay in Providence and get to know his new teammates and still, it's just perfect.

They have Skyped all summer when they couldn't be together in person. They still Skype now. All the time. Every single night, he sits in his bed and stares into Jack's lovely face and feels so incredibly lucky. 

He doesn't know how he deserves this. Jack is . . . _everything_.

“I love you,” Jack tells him over the screen, not for the first time.

Eric closes his eyes just briefly to savor the moment. Not for too long though, he doesn't want to miss a second of this. Not when this is all the time they get together these days. “I love you too,” he says.

**

The Haus is weird without Jack. Everything is weird without everyone who has graduated, but for understandable reasons, he especially misses Jack.

Having Chowder just across the hall is awesome, but . . . he just _misses Jack._

But they knew, obviously, what they were getting themselves into – this is nothing unexpected. They'll just have to stick it out until they next time they can visit each other. Which won't even be that long, really. Not in the grand scheme of things, Eric supposes.

What's a few weeks? He's meaning to be with Jack for a long time, this is no big deal. Well, it is, it's not easy, but they can totally, _totally_ do this. He knows they can.

It's just that after the excitement of meeting all the new team mates and welcoming back all of his old friends and getting settled into the routine of the new semester, he's feeling like he's sinking into a bit of a funk now.

It's probably just the hangover from all that happiness of his perfect, perfect summer.

He bakes a lot, to make up for it. It makes everyone happy to have fresh pies all the time, and seeing his friends happy makes him feel better too.

And at the end of every day, there's Jack's Skype call.

“You look tired,” Jack says, worry in his voice. He looks a little sad himself. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine, sweetheart,” he assures him. He wants to reach through the screen and wipe the frown off of his boyfriend's face. “Tell me about your day!”

**

Hockey practice is weird without Jack.

It just – it doesn't feel quite right. Ransom and Holster are doing a wonderful job. They're great. He has nothing but love for them. And . . . it's not even that he's having trouble with change in general, it's just . . . well.

_Missed you today during practice_ , he texts Jack once he's showered and changed.

_Funny_ , Jack texts back, _I was gonna say the same thing to you._

Eric sends him a heart and a kiss and shoulders his bag.

Ransom and Holster really are wonderful captains. He just needs to get used to all of this change. That's all it is.

**

It's three weeks into the semester when Jack has to miss the first Skype call – he has the next day off and some new teammates are dragging him off to dinner and some kind of party afterwards.

They talk on the phone that afternoon instead. 

Jack doesn't sound thrilled about going. Eric doesn't really want him to go, he wants him all to himself. He encourages him to go anyway. Jack should have friends in Providence. He should have friends on the team. That guy Tater who's apparently been nice to him since he got there is going along, Jack says. Maybe they're becoming friends. Eric thinks this is a good thing for him. Even though it means no Skype for the two of them.

“I'll make it up to you,” Jack says.

“Don't be silly,” Eric tells him. “I'll probably have to miss a night eventually too, you know how parties can get at the Haus. It's all good. Have fun tonight!”

He makes Jack promise to text when he gets home, even if it's really late and Eric will be already asleep and won't get to see his text before the morning. Jack promises.

Eric has a little trouble falling asleep that night, even wrapped in Jack's shirt – it doesn't really smell like Jack anymore. He'll have to make him wear it the next time they see each other.

**

“Hello? Jack?”

“Hi. Uh – S-sorry to be calling in – in the – in the middle of – of the day . . . I-I know, I know you have – you have -”

“Honey.” Eric turns on his heel, weaves through the mass of people streaming into the lecture hall to make his way back out. “Breathe. What's wrong?” Jack hasn't sounded like this in weeks. He sounds – he sounds – strained. Breathless. Not good.

“Nothing, I – nothing, sorry, you have . . . class, I -”

“I'm free, you're not keeping me from anything,” he lies. “Sweetheart, talk to me. What's going on?”

Jack sighs and Eric can practically see him trembling. “Nothing. I – nothing. Just . . .”

He understands. This isn't the first time. It just sounds worse than the last few. “Are you at home?”

“Y-yes. I'm. Uh. Yes.”

“Good,” he says, keeping his voice calm while hurrying down the hallway and into the nearest restroom, locking himself in a toilet stall just in case. Class just started, no one should be coming in here for a while. He's just so glad he read up on all of this after Jack talked to him about panic attacks that summer. “That's good, Jack. I'm glad. Do you need me to breathe with you?”

“I -” He can hear Jack take in a shaky breath, then let it out again. “No. That's – can you . . . talk?”

This is not the first time. It doesn't happen that often. But it's not the first time. Eric starts talking.

“I'm proud of you,” he says, and “you're doing great, sweetheart, you're okay,” and “this will pass, you're doing a good job, honey.” And in between he tells him about the recipe he's perfecting for the pie he wants to bake him the next time they see each other. He updates him about the latest progress in the Phelps/Bittle Jam Wars, and tells him about how the new team members are doing so far.

It takes a few minutes before he can hear Jack's breaths calming, and his heart hurts in his chest – he wants to hold him so badly. He's glad, at least, that Jack called him. To be trusted like this feels good, even if he'd prefer if this wasn't necessary. The thought of Jack hurting in any way pains him.

“I'm sorry,” Jack says eventually, when Eric finishes recounting their last team practice from just that morning.

He pauses. “Don't be,” he says quietly. “Please. You can call me any time.”

“You must have been on your way to class.”

“Jack – you don't get panic attacks on purpose.”

“I'm keeping you from studying, I shouldn't -”

“Sweetheart,” Eric cuts him off. “Do you think that if I was walking across campus and saw another person lying bleeding on the ground, I'd step over them and just go to class?”

Jack is silent for a second. “That's different,” he says, voice very low.

“It really isn't,” Eric insists, in a tone of voice that doesn't allow for any objection. “Now, tell me about your day. How was practice?”

“I love you,” Jack says.

“I love you too,” Eric tells him, smiling even though his eyes are stinging with tears. “Now quit changing the topic.”

They talk until Jack sounds better, calm, good enough for Eric to let him go.

Seven hours until their scheduled Skype session that night. He counts the hours every day. But he knows that today, he'll be willing time to speed up even more than usual.

**

They keep missing each other for almost an entire week – there are still texts and extremely short phone calls here and there, but first they can't Skype because Eric has a late study group and Jack has an early practice, next Jack is out with team mates, and the entire week continues like that. There is always _something_.

By Saturday Eric is ready to cry – he misses Jack's face and he could tell from their earlier two-minute phone call that Jack misses him too and this _just sucks._

He hugs Señor Bunny to his chest and feels lonely. It's ten o'clock on a Saturday night. The Haus is full of his friends. He should leave his room and spend time with them. Instead he's sitting here missing his boyfriend so much that it hurts and honestly, this sucks so much. It's been so long since they've seen each other, and now they can't even talk to each other for real, and long distance relationships are _awful_. He hates this.

There's a soft knock on his door and a second later Chowder sticks his head into his room, his ever-present smile a little tentative.

“Hey, Bitty? Is everything okay?”

He sighs and smiles at Chowder because he doesn't want him to worry. “Yeah. Just tired.”

“Dex just got us all pizza and we were gonna watch a movie together. Do you wanna join us?”

He sighs and throws a last long, sad look at his laptop and its blank screen. “Yeah,” he says, forcing his smile a little bigger. “I'll be right down.”

Chowder grins his biggest, sunniest grin and disappears back out into the hallway.

Eric wonders if it's always going to be like this, if he's always going to have to force himself to have fun whenever things get hard due to the distance. Because that would honestly just . . . suck.

**

It's not a fight. Not really.

“I didn't make the practice schedule, and having study group this late wasn't my idea either,” he tells Jack over the phone, on his way back to the Haus after his last lecture of the day. He has about fifteen minutes to grab his stuff and get to practice.

“You didn't try to make time in between though either,” Jack bites back.

He gasps. “Jack, there _isn't_ any time in between. This was not my doing, why are you mad at me?”

“I'm not.”

“Last night, who was the one who had to cancel? Because it sure wasn't me.”

“I had an interview and then I needed to meet my dad, I couldn't -”

“I'm not mad at you either, you know?”

“Great, then apparently we have no problem.”

“Except that we never get to talk anymore.”

Jack sighs audibly. “We're talking right now.”

Eric lets out a bitter laugh. “And that's enough for you, is it?”

“I didn't -”

“Because that's good to know. Thanks.”

“I didn't say that. And I'm not the one who can't make it tonight.”

“See, you _are_ obviously mad at me.”

“I'm not! I just . . . this sucks. You know it does.”

“That's not my fault.”

“I didn't say it was.”

“Maybe we shouldn't be talking about this right now. I have practice in, like, ten minutes.”

“Is it always gonna be like this?”

Eric stops in his tracks. “What?”

“Is it always gonna be this hard?”

He shrugs even though Jack can't see him and he just feels – tired. “I don't know, Jack. I mean, you're there. I'm here.”

“This sucks. I don't like it.”

“What does that mean?” He's not gonna cry. He's not.

“Nothing. Just – I don't like it. I don't like this. I -”

“Let's talk later, okay?” Eric suggests, because he can't do this right now.

“Later,” Jack says. “Yeah, right. Haha. Funny.” It sounds bitter, not amused.

The call ends, and Eric takes a deep breath, takes another deep breath, and then sprints toward the Haus to get his stuff to still make it to practice on time.

He's awful on the ice that day.

**

“I'm sorry.”

“Uh. What?” He's picked up the phone mostly out of reflex, he's not even fully awake.

His room is pitch dark and he feels sleep-hazy and disoriented, slides the phone away from his ear to hold it in front of his face for just a second, quickly checking the time. It's almost 3am.

“Uh,” he repeats eloquently, rubbing his tired eyes as he struggles to sit up in bed. “Jack? . . . What?”

“I'm so, so sorry, Eric,” Jack says. “I just – I'm really sorry.”

He succeeds in untangling himself from his sheet enough to at least get his legs free and slide upwards to prop his head up higher against the headboard. “I – yeah. Me too,” he finally manages. 

Their not-a-fight from that afternoon still sits heavily in his stomach – Señor Bunny's belly is still a little wet where he cried into it earlier that night.

“I know you have your life at college, just like I have my stuff here,” Jack says. “I never meant to imply -”

“I know,” he interrupts. “I know. I do. And I – I didn't mean to imply anything either.”

“When I said that I don't like this,” Jack continues, “I meant not being able to talk regularly. That's all I meant. You know that, right? Because I know it sounded like . . . but I swear I didn't mean -”

“I know,” he says again, even though for a while there, he hadn't been entirely sure. “I hate not talking to you too. I – I miss you. A lot.” He can feel tears rising in his throat again.

“I miss you too,” Jack says. “It's driving me crazy, how much I miss you. I just – I want you here with me. Or to be there with you. Or just – anything.”

“Soon,” he says. “We'll – we'll see each other soon.”

“I couldn't sleep,” Jack says. “I'm sorry for calling so late. I just – I was worrying and I couldn't sleep and I -”

“Do you have any idea how much I love you?” Eric asks.

Jack is silent for a second, and his voice is soft when he replies, calmer. “I love you too. So much.”

**

Jack's meaning to drive down for a weekend, but stuff gets switched around in his schedule and he can't make it.

Eric means to go to Providence for a weekend, but then there's extra team practice for an upcoming game all of a sudden and he doesn't really have a valid excuse he could use to get out of it.

Jack picks another weekend to drive down, but then he's too busy again.

In the end, it's Eric who makes it to Providence first.

It's the end of the semester and it's been _so, so long_ and neither one of them can wait even a minute longer.

For once, things seem to work in their favor – Jack has an early practice on Eric's very last day of the semester.

He's already told his parents he'll be visiting 'his friend' Jack before coming home and they're happy enough that he's still in touch with Jack because they both like him, and so the very second he's finally free he's leaving campus as fast as he can physically manage and gets onto the very next train to Providence.

**

It's been so long, but finally, on this bitter cold winter afternoon he's arriving in this town that's his boyfriend's home now and he has the directions to his apartment and is prepared to find his way there on his own, but then there's a car just pulling up to the curb as soon as he steps out onto the street, and the door opens, and Jack steps out.

Jack.

For a moment, it feels like his heart has stopped, but then it starts hammering away so hard he can feel the beat of it in his fingertips.

“Hi,” Jack says, and he looks so good. So good.

“Hi,” Eric says.

For the longest moment, they just stare at each other, neither of them willing to move, both of them wanting to move too much, toward each other, but they are still in public.

In the end, Jack hurries around the car to help him put his suitcase in the trunk, and then he even holds the passenger side door open for him as Eric gets in. That sweet, silly, ridiculous boy. Eric is sure he couldn't be more in love if he tried.

Jack gets in on the driver's side, and then Eric is so, so grateful for tinted windows because he can't wait a single moment longer, not even a fraction of a second.

He reaches across the space between them, grabs Jack by the neck and pulls him closer, and then, both half leaning over the gear shift, they're kissing, kissing, kissing.

Jack's lips are warm and firm and his cheeks are a little stubbly, not a lot, just enough so that Eric can feel it when he cups his face in one hand.

He's missed him. He's missed him so much. And now here they are, and Jack is sliding a hand into his hair and making this little desperate noise deep in his throat and Eric kisses him harder, pushes himself into the kiss and feels Jack push right back, and he's so _happy_ he thinks he's going to cry.

Some tears are good tears.

Jack's gonna chirp him for crying, he thinks. But that's okay. Jack's eyes look wet and a little red-rimmed too, when they pull apart for air.

“Hi,” Eric says again.

Jack doesn't chirp him for crying. Instead, he leans in again. Eric meets him halfway.

**

They're tangled up on Jack's huge bed, Jack's left index finger drawing patterns on Eric's right upper arm, their legs intertwined, and everything is warm.

Jack's wearing the dopiest smile, and Eric knows the same expression is mirrored on his own face.

He thinks they haven't really stopped touching for more than a minute since he got here. He's fine with that.

He hasn't unpacked his suitcase yet. He's gonna be here for a while longer, though, so he should probably get on that eventually, if he doesn't want all of his clothes to smell weird. But right now, there are still other priorities.

“We should think about dinner at some point,” Jack says.

“Did you get all of the stuff from the list I texted you?” Eric asks.

“Of course.”

“Then we're all set. I'll start cooking in a little while. Don't wanna get up just yet.”

“You know we can also just order pizza, right?”

He gasps, pretending to be offended, and Jack laughs.

“Okay,” Jack says. “I take that back.”

“Good.”

For a moment, they just look at each other, Eric playing with Jack's hair, Jack sliding his leg up a little higher over Eric's hip.

“I'm really glad you're here,” Jack says.

Eric kisses him slowly, smiling into it, and feels so content he could float away on the feeling. Luckily, Jack is holding him securely in his arms. “Honey,” he says. “There's no place that I'd rather be.”

It's been a long few months. But he was right. As long as they have each other, they can totally, _totally_ make it.


End file.
